Q and A - Panel Interviews Nov 11

SHANE Let’s
meet our panel. Our political scientist this week is Dr
Jennifer Curtin from Auckland University, who’s here on a
Fulbright Scholarship at Georgetown University and returns
to the programme. Dr Peter Watson is the CEO of his own
consultancy, the Dwight Group, but notably has served both
Bush presidents and been a key link between New Zealand and
America over many years. And Richard Adams is political
correspondent for the Guardian here in DC. Welcome to you
all. Peter Watson, you saw this coming for a while. Tell us
why do you think Obama won and why were you so
confident?

PETER WATSON – Trade Consultant Really,
the maths of the Electoral College is very much in the
favour of the Democratic Party presently. They do start with
a very healthy Electoral College advantage with California
being in their camp – 50 Electoral College votes right
there. Then you count New York, and pretty quickly you’ve
got a solid base from the Democratic side to work from.
Therefore, conversely, if you are Republican contender, the
critical path to 270 Electoral College votes in fact is far
more difficult, and it’s the challenging critical path for
Republicans. Mr Obama did a pretty decent job in
consolidating his base, as you know. While he only got over
50% of the popular vote, if you combine that fact with his
advantage going in with the Electoral College and of course
his incumbency, that pretty much put him—

SHANE So come
down to the math, and, Jennifer, there's been a lot of talk
about the math, but about the demographics. Is that what got
him across the line – those minority groups? Women, young
voters?

JENNIFER CURTIN – Political Scientist Yes, I
think so, but I think also it’s about the say in way in
which the Obama campaign mobilised those voters. So not only
was he seeking to re-engage with the ones who had voted with
him before, but they were on the ground 18 months ago in the
nine states that mattered, in the counties and cities that
mattered, registering new voters from those same
demographics so that they got them on the roll, out to the
polling stations. They politicised amongst those voters,
particularly amongst African American voters. The quite
suppressive voter-ID laws that a lot of states had brought
in, so they really got people quite angry and hot under the
collar around that. And so I think that’s partly why you
see the same turnout, if not a higher turnout amongst that
cohort of voters.

SHANE So from demographics to economics,
Richard. Explain to us why did he win when we had record
unemployment, the economy was doing everything against him.
How did he get through?

RICHARD ADAMS – Guardian
Correspondent Well, he was helped by the fact that the
Romney campaign did a terrible job. The fact that Obama
could win in Florida and Nevada, which are two states in
which the housing markets are flat on their back,
unemployment is terribly high, they’re in a very bad
position, and the same in Colorado, and yet he won all three
is quite extraordinary.

SHANE Why do you think that
was?

RICHARD Well, there's two main reasons. Well, the
Romney campaign did a bad job. That’s one thing. The other
two things – the Obama campaign realised that they had a
lot more money early in the campaign. So before Mitt Romney
was nominated, he ran out of money. He wasted a lot of money
blitzing people like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in the
primaries, and then he had no money left after that. The
Obama campaign realised this, and they advertised heavily
before the Republican Convention. For technical reasons,
Romney couldn’t use any money that he’d been given for
the election campaign until after he’d been nominated, so
there was a weak spot there. The Democrats saw it and they
went for it. Also, similarly to 2008, Obama out-organised
the Republicans in the same way that he out-organised
Hillary Clinton. They realised by a quirk of the rules that
early voting was going to be far more important. They put
huge emphasis on early voting, and as a result, they
massively defeated the Republicans in terms of the turnout
in early voting, and those two things I think basically
swung the election for him.

SHANE What about voters? Peter
Watson, we’ve talked about the math, we’ve talked about
the demography, if you like, and the economics. What was the
attitude out there of voters? Was there more trust out there
for Obama, do you think?

PETER In certain parts of the
demographic, yes. I mean, it’s a highly fractured 50% left
beneath his popular vote. If you actually want to look at
the fact that, yes, President Obama did of course get 50%,
but think about the fact that in fact 50% of the country
didn’t vote for him, and it’s highly fractured. Even
within the 50 he got, some of those in fact were prepared to
give him the benefit of the doubt or were in critical
states.

SHANE So quite a divided country and we will talk
about that a little bit later in the
programme.

SHANE Jennifer,
both our previous guests have mentioned the fiscal cliff and
economic woes that lie ahead of the President. Will that be
his main focus, do you think, in the next four
years?

JENNIFER CURTIN – Political Scientist Well,
it’s certainly going to be his main focus in the next four
months, because we have this expiry date of the 1st of
January, and if they don’t sort a bunch of economic things
out with the Republicans between now and then, then all
sorts of spending cuts and tax increases come into play that
could be very problematic for the rest of the Obama
presidency. But in addition to that, in the longer term over
the four years, there's still some welfare reform and tax
reform that’s needed. The Simpson-Bowles Report is still
sitting there worth looking at.

SHANE Richard, let’s
take a step back. Are you confident he’s going to be able
to broker a deal to get this through?

RICHARD ADAMS –
Guardian Correspondent Well, Congress and the White
House have a history of playing chicken on this, and
that’s how they’ve dealt with it the last couple of
times, and it’s probably what will happen this time. Obama
does have a card up his sleeve, which is he can have
negotiations with the current Congress, and of course come
the end of the year, that Congress disappears and a new one
comes in, so he gets two bites at it, even though that’s
after the fiscal cliff itself comes into effect. I imagine
there’ll be a last-minute deal. So, you know, who knows
what it’ll look like at the end of it, but I imagine that,
as with the last two occasions, disaster will be averted.
And generally the economy, I think, is picking up, and there
are economic forecasts that there’ll be another 12 million
jobs created in the next four years.

SHANE Peter Watson,
very briefly, just picking up a point that Chris Liddell
made. He said there's a serious risk of a recession. Is he
right?

PETER WATSON – Trade Consultant Well, there
may be, but the fact of the matter is what we need is some
bipartisan consensus and some cooperation. Unfortunately,
the campaigns and general elections tend to polarise
positions, and there is a significant possibility of some
negative fallout from that. But that mandate, therefore, is
– and I think on the Republican side, they really have to
understand that there's a message being communicated here
– they have to start cooperating and participating in a
more collegial way.

SHANE And, Peter, what does that mean
for New Zealand?

PETER Well, I mean, to the extent, of
course, any and all of this does, needless to say, affect
the international financial and economic environment. New
Zealand, of course, is potentially affected, like everybody
else, just as they were a few years ago when we had the
crash. It’s imperative that we actually get some
cooperative bipartisan movement here.

SHANE Jennifer,
apart from the economy, what will Obama’s focus be, do you
think – his legacy issue?

JENNIFER Oh, I think he’ll
be looking to embed Obamacare. He needs to work with
Republican governors on making sure that happens at the
state level. He’s really— Carbon tax is impossible in
this country, but he’ll be looking towards renewable
energy sources and immigration reform, as was mentioned
before.

SHANE What about immigration,
Richard?

RICHARD Immigration reform I think could be the
signature. Once the fiscal cliff is dealt with, if it is, I
think immigration reform is the big opportunity here. Obama
has a chance to really punish the Republican Party. The
combination of that and the question of statehood for Puerto
Rico, which is related, although not that close. If Obama
moves aggressively on those, he’ll find the Republicans
really have to make a decision about whether they sign up to
the sort of modern America with a large Latino and Hispanic
population.

SHANE Peter, just very briefly before we have
to wrap, but what about foreign policy? This is a president
in his second term. Can we expect anything bold in that
area?

PETER Well, I’m not sure when you say “bold”.
Much of it’s not going to be driven necessarily by US
policy per se. It’s external actions that I think the US
are going to have to think about or be obviously responsive
to. Iran, for the time being, has been off the boil. It’s
not going to stay off the boil, I can assure you. And
secondly, we’ve seen some extremely bellicose statements
from Chinese recently, particularly against the Japanese,
relative to the disputed islands. This is going to be a very
challenging four years in terms of foreign policy for the
President.

RICHARD It’s significant that Obama’s first
foreign trip – well, the first one that he’s announced
– is to Burma. That’s very important. In relation to
China, that’s quite significant.

SHANE Very briefly,
Richard, can the Republicans come back in four years’
time?

RICHARD Well, anything’s possible. If they find a
better candidate and the Democrats don’t, then definitely.
And also there's a pendulum effect after eight years of a
Democratic administration.

SHANE Jennifer, let’s begin with
you. How would you describe our current relationship with
the US?

JENNIFER CURTIN – Political Scientist Well,
I’d say it’s very solid, and it’s really come a long
way over the last 10 years, and Obama has really enhanced it
in the work that he’s done. I mean, the visit by the
Secretary of Defense Panetta earlier this year was really
important and the defence concessions that were given to New
Zealand, particularly around military-to-military
interactions and access for New Zealanders to US bases on a
case-by-case basis was even seen by the United States forces
here – some in the forces – as too much of a concession.
So the fact that they’ve engaged in this kind of way with
additional diplomatic ties going on really signifies
something very strong, I think.

SHANE Do you agree with
that, Richard? When you hear Leon Panetta say that the US
will do anything, basically, to get closer to NZ, what does
that say to you?

RICHARD ADAMS – Guardian
Correspondent Well, you know, America’s a big country
and New Zealand’s a small country. The best thing that
could happen for New Zealand would be if the Hobbit movie
was really good. That would help. But
otherwise—

SHANE Does that mean we don’t count?
We’re irrelevant?

RICHARD No, it’s not that we don’t
count.

SHANE Or is it putting into
perspective?

RICHARD It’s not that we don’t count.
With issues like Iran and China, you know, America will be
looking for support, especially in relation to China, where
it can get it in the region, and New Zealand certainly will
be important in that regard.

SHANE Do you agree with that,
Peter Watson?

PETER WATSON – Trade Consultant That
is absolutely correct. New Zealand has consolidated its
strong relationship with the United States over the last
four years and more, and that’s— there's a relationship
status now that is really quite significant, and New
Zealand’s role here in Washington has really consolidated
and the United States will continue to look, therefore, to
New Zealand for their views on this.

SHANE But just how
significant is it, or are they just keeping us in their back
pocket come a rainy day?

PETER The fact of the matter is
that you have to see this in the continuity of the
historical relationship. Interestingly enough, the United
States had a consul in New Zealand before the British did,
interestingly enough. That continuity of relationship is
only interrupted by some rather modest restrictions on New
Zealand, for the time that they existed. And, you know, that
relationship has been restored to its fully robust and
historical role. So there's nothing new about this, and
there's nothing sort of manipulative about it. It’s just
restoring the former significance of the
relationship.

SHANE Richard, should we be concerned about
being so close to America?

RICHARD That’s a very
interesting question. I mean, there may come a point where,
if relations between China and the US fray – which could
happen in the next four years or subsequently – there may
come a point at which New Zealand might have to make some
difficult decisions about who it sides with, depending on
the subject matter. So that could be an issue, but I
couldn’t predict precisely what they could
be.

JENNIFER Yes, I think even though— Mike was right
when he talked about even though they’ve called it a
pivot, basically they want to reduce their expenditure on
warfare, and they want to do that strategically and
pragmatically, and one way of doing it is to focus on the
Middle East, but also to shore up their bilateral
relationships that have been traditional to them in them in
the past. And I would also say that really the US has
something to be thankful for in terms of its relationship
with New Zealand, because – because of our strategic
involvement that was small but important in Afghanistan –
the US have recognised that that was an important part of
the way in which they dealt with Afghanistan.

SHANE Peter
Watson, what about the change of the guard, if you like?
There's some key personnel that will be moving. We’re
going to be seeing some different faces. How important is
that?

PETER Critical. The fact of the matter is, as Chris
Liddell said, they were thinking about massive transition
and personnel change in the event that there had been a
change of party, but the reality is, in fact, even under the
continuity of a second term, we will see significant
rotation of positions of very significant importance to New
Zealand.

SHANE Like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is
on her way out shortly. Who are you tipping to replace
her?

PETER Ooh, I would not want to make that call. I
suspect Susan— Ambassador Rice in the UN would be
interested in assuming that responsibility.

SHANE And of
course the other is John Kerry.

PETER Very, very highly
skilled and qualified, clearly. So you’ve got good people
there, but I’m also thinking of the second-tier people who
are directly responsible for New Zealand policy. For
example, Dr Kurt Campbell, current Assistant Secretary of
State of East Asia-Pacific – a very strong support of the
bilateral relationship. He’s been there four years. This
is a normal rotation cycle. Similarly, you could think about
the United States trade representative, possibly rotational.
Some of the—

SHANE And on that point of trade – trade
deal. Can we expect a trade deal, do you think,
Richard?

RICHARD Well, I think as the US economy improves,
I think the political winds will be much more favourable for
a trade deal. It would have been much more difficult in the
last four years. It’s very difficult for US politicians to
go forward with trade deals when the economy is not
performing very well.

SHANE So they need to get their
books in order first?

RICHARD Well, when the economy’s
doing better, then the public are more receptive to trade
deals.

SHANE And so how do you think the next four years
is going to go for Barack Obama, Jennifer?

JENNIFER I
think he’s going to be busy creating legacies as well as
doing— This is his chance to do good policy and to really
play hardball, as well as consensus politics. But he has to
be a better communicator in terms of selling the policies
that he’s interested in. He was a bit quiet in his first
term. But he’s got the experience now and he’s
comfortable in the job, and so I think I think looking
forward this could be a very good term for
him.

SHANE You’re nodding at that, Peter, but very
quickly – the trade deal. Do you think we’re going to
get it?

PETER Yes, we will, within this term. The only
issue against us, frankly, is the number of people who are
hoping to get on board, and we have to ensure that we get
the core in the group and then move on
later.

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